The Assessment

The day that Twyla turned twenty-six, she had a silent reckoning with herself. She had purposely spent the day alone, as she assessed her life from its beginning onward. She scanned the years with brutal honesty, making mental piles of what had been her fate (none of which she could be faulted for,) her choices (both good or bad,) her triumphs (mostly lucky breaks,) her downfalls...too many to count. At this point, she determined, it was damn near impossible to look at her reflection from any mirror that dared to cross her path without feeling slightly disgusted.

Her fate...firstborn child of emotionally unstable, malignantly immature parents whose only commonality was the love of a party. Turmoil, chaos, and divorce followed, to nobody's surprise. She had been virtually unseen by them both most of the time, anyway. But worse, to be later used as a pawn in their custody battle, one barbed dig after another.

When it was time for school to start, it seemed to be a chance to pretend at that all elusive state of normalcy she only witnessed on television, but craved in her soul. But even there, throughout those painful years, she had been anything but "normal." Too fat to be cool, too poor to be stylish, too awkward for sports, too teethy to even offer a smile. She was even too smart to be accepted, hiding her high marks and intelligence from the other students, fearing yet another rejection for missing the mark of mediocrity. She wondered why God wouldn't let her please, "fit in."

Finally, in her senior year of high school, she got some attention. Her body had somehow morphed into curves in the right places and boys were noticing...not that they did so publicly, but behind the bleachers or when others weren't around. The girls shunned her even more because they noticed the game. But secretly, Twyla's heart had been deliriously happy that she was no longer invisible. Maybe she was a "bit worthy, aftercall," she imagined. Maybe she could even be loved? So she allowed herself to get touched, used, and dumped. It would happen over and over. And then she realized, she was even more rejected and abnormal. No friends, no proms, no plans for college, even though the school counselor had mentioned how she'd been sure she could get an academic scholarship. But at that point in life, Twyla didn't dare to dream anymore.

As soon as she graduated, her mother told her she had to get some kind of work and then immediately help pay the bills. By this time in her life, her father had moved, remarried twice, and had other kids, all living with their mothers, with no interest in knowing their oldest sister. Twyla just went with the flow and settled into her mundane factory work at the nearby plant her mother had worked since the divorce over ten years before. They did say that "work" was a four-letter word, so she hadn't been expecting to like it.

By the first year after graduation, Twyla had been able to save and buy a used car. That was probably the best part of her life thus far. It afforded her the opportunity to make small road trips on her days off. She loved doing that, exploring, seeing new places and towns, sampling different diners from town to town, perusing shops and buying inexpensive items to collect for "one day" when she might get out of her rut. She liked the idea that nobody knew her or recognized her in these places. She felt "normal" when she journeyed. She could be somebody...anybody she wanted to be.

It was on one of those trips she met Steve when she stopped for brunch. He seemed nice enough, outgoing, not really someone to call handsome, but his eyes were sky blue and quite captivating. And he made her laugh. He was older than she was, but maybe that was a good thing, she thought. He got her phone number, and they started texting, something she lived for with him, keeping the conversations simple, avoiding any truly deep or meaningful "back and forth's."

As time elapsed, they made arrangements to meet halfway between the towns in which they were from, spending nights together at the clean, but cheap motel whenever they could. This went on for several months. Steve suggested that Twyla get her own place. She agreed that it was high time that she move out of the home she shared with her mother and stepfather.

Twyla had quickly found a very cute one-bedroom bungalow. As she worked to decorate and fill the empty spaces, she realized she was humming a tune she loved from the radio, dancing to the fun beat of Ed Sheeran's, Shivers. "Yes, I am happy, aren't I?" she thought to herself. Funny how that song stuck in her mind, even four years later. But now, she wanted to eradicate it from her existence. Just like she had blocked Steve from her life when his wife and two small children appeared at her door, asking for him.

After that, she had tried to erase herself from this thing called "life," slitting her wrists. Even that had not turned out right...her landlady had found her. "If only she had remembered she had asked her to come and look at a small leak in the kitchen, she wouldn't have been able to use her master key to let herself in!" she had mentally chided.

Now, on this birthday, the thin pearl-like scars crossed her wrists, healed but remaining evident. Twyla glared at them but picked up the pen and paper to start the written assessment which her therapist had given her as "homework." She wasn't ready to give up just yet, but her heart still wondered if something so broken could ever be "normal" again?